Lights-to-flag win for Defourny after Norris fails to start

Max Defourny secured a lights-to-flag triumph during the opening race of the Silverstone weekend of the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup on Saturday, as Lando Norris was forced to retire before the start.

Defourny took advantage of his pole position and a vacant place on the front row where Norris should have been to streak away into the distance, with the R-ace GP driver ultimately triumphing by 4.571s.

Pre-race championship leader Dorian Boccolacci made a last lap pass on Will Palmer to take second, the Frenchman passing the Briton into Copse corner, with the Tech 1 Racing driver denying R-ace GP a 1-2 finish in the process.

Ferdinand Habsburg was in close contention with Palmer during the last tour of the circuit, but the Austrian was unable to make any kind of move to pass the Briton, and the Fortec Motorsports driver was ultimately forced to settle for fourth.

Jehan Daruvala secured fifth for Josef Kaufmann Racing, but was involved in a clash with championship returnee Callan O’Keeffe at Luffield that pitched the JD Motorsport driver into a spin, the South African got going again but headed straight into the pits, with his mechanics looking over the right-rear corner of his car.

James Allen drove a strong race to claim sixth for JD Motorsport and take away some pain from O’Keeffe’s retirement, with Alex Gill seventh for Mark Burdett Motorsport ahead of Julien Falchero of R-ace GP.

Hugo de Sadeleer finished ninth for Tech 1 Racing, while Vasily Romanov completed the top ten for Fortec Motorsports, ahead of Robert Shwartzman, who took rookie honours in eleventh for Josef Kaufmann Racing.

For Norris, a promising grid slot went begging as the British driver pulled into pit lane at the start of the race, and did not take the start nor take to the track during the race due to an apparent mechanical issue on his Josef Kaufmann Racing machine.